


What it Means to be Human

by xmasxray



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, Season 13 spoilers, locus-centric, mentions of unhealthy relationship but this is lolix based on canon so it's to be expected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 01:29:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4727642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xmasxray/pseuds/xmasxray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locus isn't entirely human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What it Means to be Human

Locus isn't entirely human. He was, at one point, but something went wrong along the way and that wasn't the case anymore. He was a machine, a metallic shell of someone who once was a good person, morals and all.  
  
He remembered when he was younger, still in grade school, their teacher asked the class, "what makes us human?"  
  
He never liked that teacher, she seemed to hold something against him. It didn't make sense. He was just as kind as any other well-behaved seven year old, even if he rarely spoke.  
  
Still, she called on him, and he'd simply responded "a human body."  
  
He was scolded for not taking the question seriously. Think creatively, he'd been told.   
  
Locus couldn't think about anything other than that. Sure, what the other students said were qualities that were human in nature, none of them suited him as well. A dog has a family, and they're not people. A cat can be as happy as can be and not be a person.  
  
A human body is all it took.  
  
To Locus, he's still human. He has a living, breathing, human body. He's a soldier, not a machine, not a monster. Machines and monsters aren't people, simple as that.  
  
Still, he knew that he was different, not as human as he used to be. The body worked, but the mind did not.  
  
"You're nothing but a suit of armour and a gun."  
  
Not then, he wasn't. He was still what those children in his class would consider human.  
  
After his CO made his position in the world clear, he knew he no longer fit neatly into society.  
  
Locus adopted the name of his armour, as that is all he was. A human body made him human, though.   
  
That's what he told himself to help him get through it. Some nights were worse than others, and he would try to remember what it is to be human. Try to remember what everyone else had said so many years before.  
  
Family.  
  
Friends.  
  
Happiness.  
  
Those were typical answers, but it all boiled down to one thing.  
  
Love.  
  
Locus tried so hard to hold onto that, though he'd never quite known the feeling.  
  
He'd tried so hard to love Felix. He really did. The partners had a sense of mutual understanding, of respect for the other. Felix was there as the effects of war tore Locus to shreds, ripping out his humanity and destroying it with burning hot flames.  
  
Felix was there to put out the flames.  
  
Locus’ mind was a mess, but it was obedient. Locus was a machine under the control of anyone who he held in a respective position above himself. But he had a human body, so he was a person. Machines don't have flesh and bone, so he was a soldier. That's how it worked.  
  
The Great War ended, finally, but Locus was so war torn that society would see him as something below them, something inhuman that is to be feared.  
  
He tried to love Felix.  
  
They became mercenaries, the best of the best. They way they worked together was better than a well oiled machine. The two complemented the other in ways that is nearly impossible to find elsewhere.  
  
That's how they landed a job on the planet Chorus. It was simple enough, keep a war going until no one was left.  
  
Locus tried to remember what he'd been told love was.   
  
_Love is when you'd do anything for someone, and they'd do anything for you._  
  
That's what his mother had said, when he was still young and she was still around. Her definition of love wasn't reliable in his opinion. He'd not received any from her in his life.  
  
 _When you can't even imagine your life without a person, you love them._  
  
His father wasn't much better than his mother was, but at least he stayed. His company was far from welcome, and they rarely spoke, but he stayed and took care of Locus.  
  
He couldn't remember anything else on the topic, though, and using those definitions from people in his life who seemed incapable of love themselves, he decided that he did love Felix.  
  
They'd always had each other's backs, and they fought together like pieces of a puzzle. Fitting together neatly, unable to make a whole picture without holding on together.  
  
He couldn't imagine himself without Felix's presence. He'd been a constant in his life since the War landed them in the same place at the same time.

Love to Locus was not killing someone when you have every chance and reason to. Felix seemed to have the same idea.  
  
He'd decided that he loved Felix, and that made him human.   
  
Until he met Agent Washington.  
  
The Freelancer time and time again placed the seed of doubt into his mind, making it grow and wrap its dark thorny vines into every corner of his mind until it had encompassed it completely.  
  
Felix's repeated reminders about their orders kept him going.   
  
"We have orders."  
  
Orders made him a soldier.  
  
Then they did it. The soldiers managed to have them backed so far into a corner there was no way for them to make it out if they tried to continue any longer.   
  
He was weak, but Felix didn't seem to care.  
  
Locus didn't know what was going on with him. He didn't know a lot of things anymore.  
  
He did want to know one thing.  
  
"What is Felix afraid of?"  
  
He had a good idea of what it was already, but he couldn't be sure of anything anymore.  
  
The answer he'd gotten was far more complex than he'd thought.   
  
Felix was afraid of him.  
  
That much he could have guessed. One way or another, it had to be Locus. They'd been working together for too long for it not to have been. Felix didn't care about much, but he needed Locus.  
  
Locus thought he needed Felix too. He thought he loved Felix, that he kept him human.  
  
It was the opposite of that. Felix made sure he never returned to what he'd been. Felix took the scars, and in pretending to help tend to them, tore them open time and time again, all so he could control Locus.  
  
And it worked.  
  
The vines of doubt that had his mind under their control worked their way into every fiber of his being at the words of the alien AI.  
  
Everything he'd done since the Great War, he'd made those decisions on his own, but influenced so heavily by his partner that the lines between them had blurred so much that they were one.  
  
A pair can come apart, there can be one without the other, despite what people say.  
  
They weren't a pair. They were one entity, a force to be reckoned with.   
  
Locus always viewed that with the context that they were equals, but he was wrong. Felix was the one in control. He always had been.  
  
The vines found their way into his heart and they squeezed it dry. He never loved Felix. Felix never loved him.  
  
The quality that kept him human had never even existed. Locus wasn't a soldier at all. He was a monster, just as Washington had said.  
  
All these years, Felix had the upper hand, using his fears against him. This time, Locus wouldn't pick him up when he got himself knocked over.  
  
This time, Locus had the upper hand, and there was no way he'd let that get the best of him.  
  
"I'm doing this for me."  
  
Locus knew he wasn't human. He didn't know what it was to be human anymore. Perhaps he never did.  
  
He had no hopes of fixing what he'd become, as he was too far gone.   
  
Some wrongs weren't able to be righted, and some damages weren't able to be repaired.  
  
That wouldn't stop him from fixing what he could, despite that being impossible.  
  
Monsters are made for breaking things, after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something that I wrote really quickly on my bus ride home today, hope it's okay. As usual, any feedback at all would be greatly appreciated!


End file.
